The Impossible
by misscam
Summary: "Oh," he says, because there are no words that can really express how he feels, even knowing several languages and a lot of military jargon. "Oh."  Nikita/Michael


The Impossible  
>by misscam<p>

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Written on a request from specialhedvig. AU, taking a question Nikita was asked in 2x06 and changing the answer, as well as altering a fact revealed at the end of 2x05. Spoilers for both episodes, even if I am playing around with the plot of both.

II

"Part of me wishes he was Michael's," Cassandra says quietly. "He would have a fine son."

"He would," Nikita says, almost absent-mindedly, a thought slowly rising from the back of her mind to the forefront. Michael as a father. Michael. A child.

"He is not Max's father," Cassandra goes on, and if she sounds relieved about it or sad about it (or even sure about it), Nikita isn't too sure.

She isn't even sure what to think about another possibility that just occurred to her.

II

Nikita is strangely silent on the way home, and Michael watches her, wondering what is going through her mind. It is something, he can tell. He can always tell.

She can't be worried about Cassandra still, surely. There must be something else bothering her. Maybe Alex, the guilt that never quite seems to go away. Maybe him, always so keen to take on the pain of everyone else. (She told him once he had no idea how much pain she could take. She was right. He still wishes she wouldn't keep trying to find her limit.)

"Nikita?" he asks her, and she merely looks at him for a moment, something he can't quite catch crossing her face.

"You're my family," she says intently, taking his head in her hands and kissing him as if wanting to erase all doubt. As if he had any, could ever have any.

When she leans against him, he rests a hand on her back, feeling the faint heat of her skin through cloth.

She'll tell him. She has to. It's Michael and Nikita now, not just Nikita and just Michael.

II

For the longest time after she's taken the test, Nikita merely clutches it in her hand, watching herself in the bathroom mirror instead. Her. Nikita. Murderer turned assassin turned rogue. Michael's charge turned Michael's quarry turned Michael's girlfriend. Division's best turned Division's nightmare.

She's used to change. In her, with her, with those she loves. This is just another change. This is just...

Motherless daughter to turn mother.

That's not 'just' anything, she thinks distantly, and closes her eyes to her own gaze.

II

When Alex makes contact, and Nikita postpones making contact back, Michael knows something is definitely up. Alex is like a younger sister to Nikita, and matters like only family can.

Family. That's what Nikita told him he had, and Michael thought it just meant her. It would be enough. He could be happy with just her. He could love just her. And yet, now he's wondering if it's possible she meant more. The way she keeps trying to tell something. The way he can tell she is worried about him. The way 'family' keeps coming up. Maybe... Is it possible...? No, couldn't be. Could it? Maybe...

Could it?

II

She thinks about having an abortion. She can't not think about it, with all the reasons to get one looming so large. Being on the run. Being on the run from Division and Amanda, who would use a child as a weapon with no hesitation (though perhaps just a little regret, somewhere deep down). Being on the run with a mission that is already close to impossible and now actually may be so.

Then she thinks about Michael, about herself and the other option.

II

She doesn't meet his eyes when they crawl into bed. She looks at him when she thinks he isn't noticing, but she isn't quite meeting his eyes. As if there is something in them he would be able to read.

"Nikita?" he asks softly, and she closes her eyes for a moment, as she sometimes would before plunging into a dangerous situation during a mission.

"Michael..." she starts, then seems to falter a little. Oh. Oh God. It could.

"Are you..." he starts, and she seems to read the question on his face.

"Yes."

"… pregnant?"

"Yes," she repeats, eyes on his face, clearly trying to read him. "I'm pregnant."

"Oh," he says, because there are no words that can really express how he feels, even knowing several languages and a lot of military jargon. "_Oh_."

She's pregnant. They're having a child. Michael and Nikita and a baby. Family. He could love just her, be happy with just her, have a family with just her.

But oh, oh he's not going to. He's going to have another to love. Nikita and a child. Their child. Their family.

"Oh," he says again, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. "Good."

"Good?"

"I didn't mean..." He catches himself, trying to find the right words. "I mean, it's not good because we're on the run and I don't know how we'll do this and Amanda will love to use this against us, but... Good. Nikita, it's _good_."

She lets out a breath, and he kisses her softly, letting his lips linger on hers in the barest of touch. After a moment, some of the tension in her seems to drain, her body becoming more relaxed under his.

"It's good," he whispers again, for himself as much as her. It will be. He'll make it. He has to.

II

The heart is a funny thing, Nikita has always thought. It can take so much pain, as if it's built for that, even making love feel like pain when it's strong enough.

She loves Michael, and her heart hurts. She isn't even sure he's aware his hand is lingering across her stomach, as if already trying to protect what will be their child. Michael. Always so protective. Always so loving.

Rather like her.

"You want a child," she says, and he lifts himself a little to look at her.

"Don't you?"

He must catch the hesitation on her face, because she can see a flicker of hurt across his.

"I do," she says firmly, touching his face. "Just not in these circumstances. I thought... After we'd taken down Oversight, after you take down Percy... We'd have a house somewhere and then, then..."

"You were never good at doing things in order," he reminds her, and she has to smile a little.

"I wonder who taught me that?"

"Couldn't have been your Division instructor. He would know better."

They both laugh, and she kisses him a little sloppily as his laughter turns to a low chuckle, the sound reverberating against her tongue. He leans a little into it, his arms flexing a little as he puts the weight on them rather than her. Careful. So very careful now, and she'll know her tendency to take risks and his tendency to protect will be colliding even more than normal now.

"We can do this," he whispers intently, wishfully.

"How?"

"I have no idea," he tells her, his brow burrowing a little. "We'll figure it out. I know we will."

"How do you know?"

"You taught me to believe the impossible."

Oh, she thinks faintly, as he kisses her again. _Oh._

II

In the middle of the night, Michael wakes to a nightmare of exploding cars and lost families, and death, death, death, all what he lived for so long.

But Nikita is sleeping next to him, breathing calmly, breathing for two. No. Breathing for three. For him too. All the things he thought impossible when he lost his wife and child – love again, family again, purpose again – become possible. That's how he knows they can do the rest too. Nothing's impossible. Not with Nikita. He has to believe that when she's already proven it once. Has to.

When he puts his arms around her, she sighs a little in her sleep, then links her hand with his as if by instinct. He listens to her breath until it's all he hears, like a lullaby to fall asleep to.

He doesn't have another nightmare that night.

II

In the morning, they tell Birkhoff he's becoming an uncle – and he only makes one remark about Division's appalling lack of sex ed, but several about refusing to be a babysitter.

He will, though.

More impossible things have happened, after all.

II

FIN


End file.
